Sir William Edward Rouse Boughton 2nd Bart.

Awarded the compensation with a large group of others, including the Trevelyan family, for the enslaved people on several estates on Grenada, as executor (with Sir Robert Heron, q.v.) of Susanna, Lady St John nee Simond (q.v.). Sir Henry Halford bart. (q.v.) had married Elizabeth Barbara St John, Lady St Johns' daughter, in 1795. William Edward Rouse Boughton was also the brother-in-law of St Andrew St John, 14th Baron St John (the brother of Elizabeth Barbara St John), who had married Boughton's sister Louisa.

Only son of Sir Charles William Rouse Boughton (1747-1821), an 'India interest' MP, (i.e. nabobs employed by the East India Co. [EIC]). MP for Evesham 1780-1790 and supporter of Wm. Pitt, and for Bamber (1796-1800). Employed in Bengal by the EIC, 1764-1778. Critical of Warren Hastings. For his life see Oxford DNB.

W. E. Rouse Boughton's marriage to Charlotte Knight brought Downton Castle, Herefordshire, into the family. Charlotte was from the Knight family which had developed the Downton estate since Richard Knight, iron master of Madeley, Shropshire (1659-1749) bought it. . W. E. Rouse Boughton had an undistinguished political career from which he retired without explanation in 1826. (See Political Legacies.)

T71/880 Grenada nos. 435 (Beausejour), 445 (Tempe), 760, 771 (Simon[d]), 857 (Requin) and 860 (Sagesse); Sir Robert Heron and Sir William Boughton were identified as appointed by the Court of Chancery to succeed Mr Townshend, Lady St John's executor, in a letter from 'Mr Hankey' to Lady Halford in 1826, 'Copy letter from [Lady Halford], Curzon Street to [a lawyer]', 26/11/1826, Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, Record Office DG24/1051/7.

For the life of Sir Charles William Rouse Boughton, Oxford DNB; for W. E., see D. R. Fisher (ed.), The House of Commons 1820-1832 (7 vols., 2009), VI, p. 1018; for the Knight family, the British Library holds a typescript, Pauline Beesly, A Brief History of the Knight Family (The Author: Ludlow, 1964).